


Even In Darkness, Light

by Tarradiddlet



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Sgrub Session, Gen, Warning for explicit content in the pesterlogs in the form of jokes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-23
Updated: 2015-02-23
Packaged: 2018-03-14 19:57:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3423632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tarradiddlet/pseuds/Tarradiddlet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Roxy Lalonde gets seized by Alternian warships during a takeover. Her daughter mounts a rescue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Even In Darkness, Light

TT: We all have our regrets.  
TT: Participating in John’s loving rendition of Beyonce’s “Countdown”, I would imagine.  
TG: no way johns beyonce video was hilarious and i am proud nay humbled to be a part of it  
TG: shits going to win me an oscar one day  
TG: ‘best at wriggling around on the floor like a breakdancing baby’  
TG: itll be one of the clips they play before they announce my win  
TG: see that vid was just the springboard for my wiggling baby career  
TG: launching me straight into a beautiful lifetime achievement award for doing the best fucked-up worm  
TG: shhh no dialogue just slick moves now  
\-- tentacleTherapist [TT] sent the turntechGodhead [TG] the file davegrovellinglikeadumbbaby!.txt to TG --  
TG: . . .  
TT: TG: im telling you man take it down pls ill tie my balls together in a beautifully decorated knot and put it on the top of your christmas tree  
TT: TG: itll be an its a wonderful life level of touching sentimentality your father will shed a single supportive tear right into his novelty deluxe shaving foam set  
TT: The trouble lies in knowing where to start!  
TG: ok brb  
TT: Oh, feel free to b long b, I imagine it will take quite some time to delve into the particularly Oedipal clusterfuck.  
TT: Freudian whammy.  
TT: Jungian juncture?  
TT: Hmm.  
TT: Of course it seems like gilding the lily to even mention your tortured genitalia reference, and the presentation thereof to your strenuously asserted platonic ‘bro’, but its very interesting that you chose imagery evocative of castration, is it not?  
TT: And that too, on one of the most holy days of the dominant religion of our nation, one which is heavily associated with families and bonding.  
TT: As you clearly reference in line deux.  
TT: A classical inversion of the American Pastoral? Leyendecker for Rockwell?  
TT: And of course the cherry on this turgid sundae, John’s Dad weeping into that soft,white, spurting shaving foam.  
TT: I would hardly be surprised if some errant drops happened to land on your gift from the force of his emotion!  
TT: He would surely have been ejaculating streams of words at your display.  
TT: Dave?  
TT: Have you quite finished berating John?  
TT: Oh, I see that you have.  
TT: (That means he sent that log to me as well for those of you playing at home, btw)  
TT: (“fondling asspuppet”?)  
TG: traitors  
TG: cowards  
TT: Anyway, I did not contact you merely to get a firmer understanding of your tortured psychosexual development.  
TT: Something’s up.

DAYS IN THE PAST, BUT NOT MANY…

As a budding writer, not for you lies the mindless drudgery of an unpaid internship, toiling diligently away at busywork and files while hoping that drops of wisdom will magically rain on you due to your varyingly close proximity to varying levels of talent. No, you hone your craft alone: silent, rapt, busy in the actual business of your field of study.

This is how it goes. You write a word. You change tense. You change person. You pace relentlessly around your room in search of inspiration, and then decide to tidy up the place a bit after you stub your toe on an errant copy of Necromancy: For Dummies (It was a gift). (It is worn from re-reading). Cleaning your room takes up a nice chunk of time, especially because you spend half an hour reading through Necromancy For Dummies again. You sit down again, and thoughtfully change the word ‘debonair’ to ‘louche’. A breakthrough. Okay, you are incredibly bored and this is so very stupid.

You are relieved to hear pesterchum’s alert, even when you discover that it’s your mother that’s messaging you.

\-- teetotalGlamatrix [TG] began pestering tentacleTherapist [TT] --  
TG: rose !!!! :-) :-) :-)  
TG: hey earth 2 rolal jr  
TG: howre U doing bb

Your mother has taken to what she will always refer to as ‘hip internet lingo, WINK’ with an alarming enthusiasm generally unseen in people older than 12. She studies ‘Internet slang YOUR child could be using (to engage in coded sexting in front of your very nose)’ articles not to dissuade you, but for _tips_. You shudder to imagine the chaos should she be unleashed on 4chan.

TG: rU writing much tday  
TG: its ok if no!!!! takes time

Surely the woman is a witch.

TT: Hi Mom.  
TT: Writing is definitely proceeding apace. That is definitely a thing that is continuing to happen.  
TT: Have you eaten lunch?  
TG: aw no bb UR 2 sweet bt i dont think ill have time 4 that 2day :-C  
TG: V busy with these coding shenans!  TG: And keeping these whiupersnappers in line :-)  
TT: I am sure that you will ensure all those snappers remained whiupped.  
TG: :-)  
TT: I’ll bring you a sandwich.  
TT: I’m going to have lunch anyway, and my work can surely withstand a few moments of separation.  
TG: aw but what abt UR story-- haha i see you sniped me ms lalonde  
TG: ok but only if you dont take 2 long ill b soooo guilty otherwise  
TT: It’s hardly Le Cordon Bleu. And you work like 2 feet away.  
TG: UR the best!!!<3 <3 <3  
TT: See you, mom.   
  
\-- TentacleTherapist [TT] ceased pestering teetotalGlamatrix [TG] --

Your mother does live, if not literally two feet away from your home, so close to it that that hardly seems an exaggeration. She has always been vague as to the nature of what precisely it is that she does, but that is possibly because she works in echelons so far above you she knows that you cannot comprehend them. It involves coding and what she claims to be ‘intensssse government secrets’. That could be hyperbole, knowing her, but knowing her, it could be not. What is certainly true is that her workplace is guarded like Fort Knox, or like a rich corporation’s power play.

By now the guards all know you though, so you don’t have to wait in the lobby like a toddler for your mom to pick you up. You merely have to wait in front of her door like a toddler until she arrives.

‘And tell Miguel to go over the coords on that crash site again because I’m not sure those data seem completely above-board to me.’ she says into her phone, and smiles at you as she unlocks the door. You sit down until she’s finished, right in front of an excruciating attempt at poetry that you made in 5th grade that she has blown-up, laminated, and framed above her desk, with a tiny photo of you pinned to the corner. ( _oh, grimme be your face, pale knight desolate, whom pon yon sedgeless hilltop wander_ , it begins- you read a lot of Keats when you were eleven.) You cast your eyes about the room in search of anything else to distract you, which isn’t hard - your penchant for untidiness appears to be genetic. You skim over various other writings by yourself, photographs of you both from various holidays (even the ones taken from when you were 8-12, where you refused to smile for photographs and also for any other reason), horribly tacky statues of wizards, a selfie of her and her sponsor (she has covered them up entirely with a gigantic wizard sticker and also written AA PRIDE <3 !!! over the image in pink glitter pen), to the large manilla folders that are stacked around everywhere, which are not stamped TOP SECRET because the words Top Secret, along with a list of people who are permitted to view the documents within, are already printed on the envelopes. You’ve read quite a few over time, they all involve a lot of math and are impenetrable to you. You could leave, but the truth is that your mom clearly misses you after your year at college, and it shows in the way that she brightens up whenever she sees you. You were, in polite terms, recalcitrant when you were younger, and you will not begrudge her ten minutes of boredom.

Even if there is nothing to do. You prop your chin in your hand and look at the papers on her desk. It appears to be satellite readings, which you can tell because at the top it says ‘SATELLITE READINGS’ in typewriter font.

‘- And I’ll get Jake to send me the readings from last Thursday.’ She laughs. ‘Think he’d look good in a wizard beard?’, she says, horribly. But she finishes the call and turns to you.

‘Aw, baby girl, thank you so much!’ she says as you hand her the paper bag. ‘Oh yessss its peanut butter jelly doritos time, this is Christmas.’

‘Yes,’ you agree. You munch your own cheese sandwich and try not to think about it. She still works through lunch, but the silence is more companionable, and she tells you jokes about people you don’t know about and projects you scramble to remember. You talk to her about the chapter that you are working on (you conflate your progress from the previous week) and about the structure of magic that you plan to incorporate into the work. You both really love wizards. It’s homey.

You’re interrupted by a blaring klaxon siren and a mechanical voice repeating the words ‘Code Scratch’. ‘Oh shit,’ Mom says, and winces, ‘Sorry Rosie, time for me to vamoose I think. You probably should be making tracks, they’ll want to clear up the area’ she rolls her eyes, big and theatrical, and you pretend to ignore the tenseness in her jaw.

You ask, still, ‘What’s the matter?’ and she shrugs and says

‘Just a security breach. NBD I’ve taken care of worse, most likely.’ She flexes her arms. ‘Oh wait duh should’ve gone for my fingers’ And then she flexes those.

‘I think that makes you look more like a cat’, you tell her, as you gather your things, and she laughs.

‘Score one for Mom!’ she says.

 

TG: rose  
TG: rose you okay there its been like five minutes  
TG: you best not be colluding with egbert about anymore of my pesterlogs i will scour my whole message history looking for some choice nuggets of yours to drop on the internet you abomination  
TT: It’s my Mom.  
TT: She’s gone.

**Author's Note:**

> If you're interested in seeing John's loving recreation of Beyonce's Countdown video, it probably looked quite like this: http://youtu.be/w4aiwTkDwCY  
> Jade was also in it, but she's currently gleefully showing it to everyone who will hold still while she toils in the drudgery of her unpaid internship >:)


End file.
